Page 87 of Savage Escape

“Busy bees…” His voice was slurred and slow. “Darwin’s like… so… purple… I like it?” His limbs were still limp, but at least he wasn’t dead. Maybe brain damaged for life, but not dead. “Penelope… she likes cashews… eww.”

“Can’t hold much longer. Fucking get it together!” Her muscles were screaming. Blood was running down her face and hands and back and throbbing in her head.

“Caden?” Suddenly he was alert. Caden could feel his weight shift and his muscles tense. “What the fuck!?”

And then came Jackson. Cursing and rolling and tumbling and umphing all the way down.

“Cliff!” It was more of a howl than anything else. “Cliff!”

“Fuck!” His body started wrenching around as he tried to find a hold. But it was too late. He bounced off the same boulder his brother did and shot past her. Caden couldn’t help him—all her arms were taken. Fuck fuck. He was going to die because of her.

Holden caught his boot.

The extra weight felt like it pulled her apart. Her shoulder popped out of its socket and Caden was seeing little dots.

“Mother fucking?—”

White hot pain was ripping up and down her muscles. Her arm, the one holding Holden and Jackson and the same one that’d been dislocated last time, popped out of its socket. Her fingers went numb, but she gripped his belt with everything she had. She wasn’t breathing now, just hollering out the hurt.

“Was that your arm?” Holden’s voice sounded from somewhere below.

“Hold on, Caden!” Jackson bellowed as he swung his weight towards the cliff. “Just a little bit longer!”

The movement sent fresh shockwaves of pain through her. Her blood-soaked hand was making her grip on the knife precarious. She was slipping.

“Can’t—slipping.” She was fucking slipping. Her palm was no longer in contact with the hilt. Her fingers were the only things gripping now.

“One more second.”

Jackson swung again; this time he body slammed the rock face and shoved his knives into crevices at the same time.

“Fuck!” Her fingers lost the hilt, and Caden experienced a moment of complete and utter terror.

Her heart stopped.

She didn’t—couldn’t breathe.

Everything came into sharper focus. The sky was bright blue, birds were chirping, there was a beetle crawling over a mound of dirt right in front of her face. She could hear Holden breathing, deep and fast. Jackson was grunting and wedging his knives deeper into the mountain side. The pain in her arm was overwhelming. And she was going to fall to her death.

And then she dropped.

And dropped.

And was yanked to a halt.

She was still clutching Holden’s belt. Her arm was still in an incredible amount of pain, but she’d endure because Jackson’s knives were holding. They were dangling off the rock face, but they weren’t falling.

They weren’t fucking falling.

But they were moving. Down. Slowly.

“Son of a—” It was Jackson growling.

Slowly suddenly became faster as the knives dragged down the mountain side under their combined weight. And then they were airborne and dropping like rocks.

Caden released her grip on Holden’s belt and watched as his ass followed her down.

She didn’t want the last thing she’d ever see to be Holden’s ass outlined by nothing but blue sky. She wanted to see Nathan’s ass. She wanted to see that stupid, ridiculous grin. She didn’t want to die.

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